


Progeny

by pasiphile



Series: Progeny [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Coming of Age, Kid Fic, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Parentlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-27
Updated: 2014-12-27
Packaged: 2018-03-03 20:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2886044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not once had Jim considered <i>occasional custodial visits of his natural daughter</i> in his myriad plans for the future. The child had featured, of course, but as a side-note. He’d put her in a foster family, or leave her with her mother, and she’d be nothing more than a theoretical exercise, far removed from him.<br/>He never imagined <i>this</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 8

**Author's Note:**

> written as a gift to Carolina (better-times-are-coming)

London is bigger than she expected.

Dublin is big too, of course, but it seemed smaller because she knew it, because her Mam used to take her on long walks, point out everything interesting to her. She only has to close her eyes and she’ll see Dublin’s streets before her eyes, Churchtown’s wide roads and front gardens. She  _knows_ Dublin.

She doesn’t know London.

It’s tiring, people everywhere,  _noise_ everywhere, busy in a way that makes her head pound. Too much to keep track of. She’s cold as well, hungry, tired. And she doesn’t really know what to do. Well, she knows, of course, listen to her mother’s words, but…

 _Go to London. Find him_.

Him. Her father.

She sighs and sits down on a bench, swings her legs. When Mam talked about London, it was about Trafalgar square and Nelson’s Column and the Big Ben, so that’s where she went, among the tourists. But there are people giving her odd looks, a girl all on her own attracting attention, and she – she shouldn’t. That much she knows. She can’t be caught.

A policeman looks in her direction. She lowers her eyes, quickly –  _I’m invisible I’m not here don’t notice me_ – but it doesn’t work. He’s coming over, him and another one.

She slides off the bench and starts walking, head down, hands inside her pockets. “Hey,” the policeman yells after her, and she looks down, hurries up, can’t be caught…

“Hey, you, young miss!”

She gives up on pretending and runs, but they’ll catch her, her legs are shorter and she doesn’t know where to go, and people are letting her through looking confused and –

“ _There_  you are, love,” a man says, and she’s swept off her feet and taken in someone’s arms. “I was worried sick about you, you can’t run off just like that.”

She freezes. Bad men coming to take her, she knows about that, know what her Mam told her, and maybe the policemen are safer than this stranger. She pushes against his chest.

“Hush, Alex,” the man whispers.

He knows her name.

It could be a trick, but she’s tired, so tired, and his arms are warm and nice and comfy.

He knows her name. That means he’s safe, right?

Maybe even…

She leans her head on his shoulder and looks up at his face. Blue eyes, not dark like hers, and his hair is lighter – he doesn’t look like her at all.

“That your daughter, sir?” the policeman asks, sternly.

“Yeah, little devil’s always slipping away when I’m not looking,” the man says. “Sorry about this.”

“Can we see some paperwork, please?”

“Hm? Oh. I’ve got my licence here somewhere, hang on…” He adjusts his grip so she’s holding on to his side, only held up with one arm, and reaches into his back pocket.

“Any proof this is your daughter, sir?” the policeman asks, checking the papers.

“Not on paper, no. I’ve got her, whatsit, birth certificate at home, though, for when we travel. Why, is something wrong?”

The policeman hands over the papers and leans over to her. “Back to your daddy, love?” he asks, but his face is serious.

If she said she didn’t know the man, she’d have to go with the police. But…

 _Never trust the police_.

She nods.

“Good. Don’t run off again, eh? There’s a good girl.”

The policemen give both of them one last look, then turn away.

“Right.” The man hoists her up – easily, even though she’s not that little anymore – and starts walking. “Off to home.”

“Dublin?” she asks.

“No, you’re going to stay with us for a bit, if that’s alright.”

“It’s not.”

He adjusts his hold again so he can look her in the face. She drops her eyes – she doesn’t  _like_ people looking at her. “Stubborn little thing, aren’t you?” he says. “Well, love, if you want you can still cause a fuss and call the coppers back. Maybe they’ll take you back to Dublin.”

She considers. What Mam told her was pretty clear _: don’t trust the police,_   _go to London, find your father_. She did the first two, and might have done the third one as well. And she feels safe in this man’s arms. She hasn’t felt safe since she got home from school and saw…

She shakes her head. “I’m staying.”

“Good girl.” He pulls her against his shoulder.

“Are you really my daddy?” she asks, softly.

“No,” the man says. “But you’re safe with me, don’t worry.”

She rests her head on his shoulder and closes her eyes.

***

“You’ve got her?” Jim asks immediately when he comes in, even before he pulls off his gloves and scarf.

“Yep,” Sebastian says. He puts aside the laptop and gives Jim his full attention. “Sleeping in the bedroom right now, safe and sound. Did get stopped by a copper but I managed to convince him I was the kid’s father. Didn't even make an incident report, as far as I can see. Who is she?”

Jim ignores him and takes out his phone. “Good. You’re sure she’s unharmed?”

“Positive. Dead tired though, she nodded off in my arms. Jim…”

“Not now, I’ll – ” He stops and looks over Sebastian’s shoulder.

Sebastian turns. The girl, Alex, has woken up and is peering around the bedroom door at them, hair a mess and eyes only half open.

He glances at Jim. He’s staring at the girl, almost as if surprised. But why?

But then again,  _why_ has been the prominent question on his mind since Jim told him this morning to go find a stray eight-year old in central London.

The girl sniffs and runs an arm over her face. “Are you my father?” she asks.

Jim walks to her and goes down to one knee. He carefully runs his knuckles over the girl’s cheek, then tilts her chin up, studying her.

She’s got the same colour eyes as him.

Sebastian stares, suspicions forming, but it can’t be, not  _Jim_ …

“Go back to bed, sweetheart,” Jim says softly. “Grown-ups have work to do.”

She nods, yawns, and disappears into the bedroom, apparently trusting Jim on sight.

He straightens up and goes straight to the study, ignoring Sebastian, even when he trails after Jim in confusion.

It  _can’t_ be. Can it?

Jim sits down at his desk and pulls up the CCTV footage of Trafalgar square. He concentrates on the screens, not paying Sebastian any attention. Meaning it’s up to him.

“You’ve got a kid,” Sebastian says, trying out the words.

“I’ve got a kid,” Jim affirms, flipping through security screen after security screen.

“ _You_ ’ve got a kid.”

“Obviously.” He looks up from underneath his eyebrows. “Can you concentrate? I need to check if someone saw you taking her.”

“You’ve got a  _kid_.”

Jim puts his hands on the desk and closes his eyes, expression pained. “Sebastian…”

“A goddamn  _kid_.”

“ _Yes_.” He whirls around and crosses his arms, frowning. “Go on, ask what you want, let’s get this over with.”

“Why are you protecting her?”

He blinks, as if that’s not the question he was expecting. “Sorry?”

“You obviously haven’t even seen her before, so why… Why do you care about her?”

“Proprietary pride,” Jim replies, smoothly. “I’ve been paying for her since before she was born, and I’d hate to see an investment like that come to nothing.”

That’s a lie, if ever he saw one. “Who’s the mother?” he asks, sharply.

“Dead. Which is why the child’s here.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Jim sighs and leans back. “She was a… call it a youthful infatuation.”

“Were you in  _love_ with her?” Sebastian asks, fascinated.

Jim gives him an amused, ironic look, and turns back to the computer. Conversation closed.

“I’ll go and buy some cuddly toys, then, shall I?” Sebastian says sharply.

Jim still remains silent. Sebastian rolls his eyes and leaves.

If he bangs the door behind him, it’s entirely accidental.

***

“So,” Sebastian says later that afternoon, as they’re both sitting on the sofa, a pile of files heaped onto the coffee table. “What are we going to do with her?”

“Now, that’s the question.”

“Put her in the system?” Sebastian suggests. “If we can forge documents, convince her to lie, find a social worker…”

“She’s not going into care.”

“Might be the best option, though. I don’t know if – ”

“She is  _not_ ,” Jim says, “going into care.”

Sebastian looks up, surprised. There was something flat and steely in Jim’s voice he hasn’t heard before.

“Alright. Well, we can’t very well keep her here, can we?” Sebastian says, trying to be reasonable. It’s odd: usually it’s Jim who’s the reasonable one.

Jim stays silent.

Sebastian gives him a suspicious look. “Don’t tell me you’re actually considering…”

“No,” Jim says. He runs his hand over his face. “No, you’re right, we can’t. I’ll find her a foster family, somewhere permanent.”

“Good.”

Jim returns to his files. Sebastian watches him.

It’s a strange thought, Jim with a woman. Jim getting her pregnant. Hell, just the thought of Jim being  _young_ is enough to throw him off. But the idea that he let someone have his child, that he kept his eye on her, protecting her from afar…

It seems a very non-Jim like thing to do.

“I can  _feel_ you thinking,” Jim says, still rifling through his files.

“My partner just sprung an illegitimate child on me, give me some time to deal.”

Jim gives him a very unamused look from underneath his eyebrows. Sebastian raises his hands.

“Fine, fine. Still partly true, though. I’d never have thought of you as  _someone’s dad_.”

“I’m not.” He makes an irritated gesture, as if he’s batting away an annoying fly. “The fact that the girl shares half my DNA doesn’t mean anything.”

“Really? That’s why I had to run across London centre all morning, yeah?”

Jim throws him an exceptionally filthy look. “It’s  _responsibility_.”

“Isn’t that part of being a parent?”

He sighs and drops the file. “Honestly? I don’t know.”

Sebastian gives him a look. There’s something about Jim, something quiet and thoughtful and sombre, a mood he only ever gets when things run really really deep.

A  _kid_. Yeah, that would run deep, wouldn’t it?

“I don’t know,” Jim says again. His eyes go to the window. “But she needs to be… She needs to be somewhere I know is safe. A good place.” He continues to stare outside, fingers occasionally twitching.

“She looks like you, you know,” Sebastian says.

Jim’s head snaps up.

But before he can reply, the door of the bedroom opens and Alex appears again, rubbing her eyes. “I’m not tired anymore,” she says. “I’m hungry.”

Sebastian exchanges a look with Jim. “What do eight-year olds eat?” he asks. “Just – regular things?”

Jim rolls his eyes. “Nothing too spicy, too heavy, and nothing with alcohol in it.”

“Right. Come on, you.” He gives the kid an awkward smile. “Let’s get some food in you.”

***

The girl stares at him as she munches on her toast – or rather, not at him, but at a point somewhere beyond his right shoulder. Her eyes are the exact same shade as Jim's: deep dark brown, turning black in the shade and glowing warm in sunlight. Even her accusing expression feels a bit familiar.

Chew, swallow, bite. Stare.

Sebastian clears his throat. How do you hold conversations with children, anyway? “So, you want anything el-“

“Who killed my mother?” she asks, her voice clear and piping. Her eyes dart up to his, then go back to his shoulder.

Sebastian’s mouth snaps closed.

“Do you know?” she continues. “I thought you knew because you knew where to find me as well.”

“I don’t know.” Sebastian glances at Jim, still sitting in the living room. Whether he cared for the woman or not, she’s a link to him, which means he’ll get his revenge on whoever killed her, no doubt about it.

But that’s hardly the thing to say to an eight-year old, is it?

“You’re safe now,” he says instead.

She cocks her head, an oddly Jim-like gesture. “Am I?” she asks, softly.

“You’re…” He hesitates. Maybe he should say something reassuring, the kind of lie you tell children. But he’s been on the receiving end of those, and god, how much he hated them. “You’re safer here than you’d be anywhere else. And we’ll try our hardest to make sure it stays that way.”

She looks down for a bit, frowning, then nods, and takes another bite.

"So, how did you get here, anyway? All the way from Dublin?"

She swallows her bite, then shrugs. "Train and boat."

"All on your own?"

No reply. She’s squinting a bit, looking slightly annoyed. But no, that’s not annoyed, that’s…

On impulse, he switches off the harsh neon lighting, turning on the softer yellow light instead. Her face promptly relaxes. She blinks in surprise, then looks up at him. “Oh,” she says, “thanks.”

“No problem. D’you often have trouble with lights?”

Another long look, and then she nods. “Lights, and noises, scratchy clothes and blankets, sponges when they’re too rough… Lots of things. Mam said I was being – being over-sensitive.”

He shrugs. “If it bothers you… Let us know when there’s anything wrong, alright?”

She nods, her little face oddly thoughtful. “Thank you,” she says again.

“You’re welcome.” But she’s already transferred her attention back to the sandwich.

A tiny clever stubborn little she-Jim. Christ, this is – beyond weird, it’s utterly  _absurd_.

“Seb,” Jim calls from the living room.

He leaves the kid to eat and goes to Jim. “Yeah?”

“She’ll need clothes, clean underwear, pyjamas, that sort of thing,” Jim says absently. He’s multitasking again, three laptops open around him, several scribbled-on documents scattered inbetween.

“So?”

Jim looks up at him. “So go buy some.”

“Me?”

“I’m busy.”

“Yeah, but… I don’t know the first thing about children’s clothes.”

Jim snorts. “It’s hardly rocket science.”

“You honestly want me to walk into a children’s clothing shop and…”

“Oh, come on, Seb, you’ve done far far worse.”

“Depends on your definition.”

A small sound makes him look up. Alex has left the kitchen and is studying them again. Sneaky little thing.

“Alirght, kid, what’s your favourite colour?” Sebastian asks. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Jim snigger.

No reply, at first: just those huge dark eyes not-quite looking at him. And then, quiet, “Dark blue.”

Sebastian gives Jim one last irritated look, then gets his coat and wallet. “Dark blue it is.”

***

“Clothes.”

Alex looks briefly up at him, then at the pile of clothing he dropped in front of her.

“Hope they’re the right size. Lots of dark blue, see? And I made sure there’s no scratchy fabrics, just like you said.”

She continues to stare.

Sebastian reaches out to touch her shoulder in reassurance, but she draws back abruptly. No touching, fine; Jim has periods where he dislikes physical contact as well, it’s nothing he isn’t used to.

Sebastian sighs and drops to his haunches, bringing him to her eye-level. “You need clean clothes,” he explains patiently, “and we can’t go back to Dublin to get yours. So we bought you new ones.”

A suspicious sideways glance.

“I, er…” He looks over his shoulder, just to check if Jim is still in the living room, if he hasn’t secretly crept up to point and laugh at him. “I also got you this.” He reaches inside one of the bags and pulls out the soft cat-shaped toy, holds it out to her.

She stares at that as well.

Christ, he feels ridiculous.

“Right, stupid idea, got it…” He puts it back into the bag and sighs. “Just… get cleaned up and put on your pyjamas, yeah? You’re big enough to do that on your own?”

She nods, still eyeing the clothes as if they might jump up and strangle her.

“Good,” Sebastian says dubiously. He closes the door behind him and goes back to Jim.

“She’ll need a bed as well,” Jim says, without looking up. He’s looking tired, strained. Too much work in too short a time.

“How long does she has to stay here?” Sebastian asks.

“A few days at the least. This needs to be done thoroughly.” He runs his hand through his hair and blows out his cheeks.

Sebastian frowns. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I am,” Jim says irritably.

“It’s just… This must be a shock for you, right? The kid? Your past coming back to bite you in the arse?”

“If I wanted to be psychoanalysed, I’d – ”

“Fine, fine…” Sebastian raises his hands. “Just saying. Alright, a bed?”

“There’s a spare mattress and some pillows on the first floor, get those up here.”

Sebastian throws Jim a salute and goes to the door.

***

Lugging a mattress around is harder work than he’d expected. It’s  _heavy_ , for something entirely stuffed with feathers. And the mass of pillows and blankets might not weigh a lot, but it’s still something really cumbersome to move around.

He piles everything against a bare wall in the living room – can’t have her sleeping in the surveillance room, or in the filing one, can they now? – and arranges everything until it’s basically a very fluffy downy nest.

Alex quietly sneaks up on him, but this time at least he notices her.

“This is where you’ll be sleeping tonight,” Sebastian says. He looks down at her.

She’s holding the toy he bought her.

“You like it?” he asks, feeling a strange stab of triumph. Yes, well done, he won over an eight-year old girl with a cuddly toy; hardly his most infamous feat to date, is it?

She crawls onto the mattress and burrows into the blankets and pillows, for a few moments disappearing entirely. Then her head pops out again.

“Yes,” she says. And she smiles.

It’s the first time he sees her smiling.

***

That night, Sebastian wakes up to the sound of a cry.

His eyes snap open and he reaches beneath his pillow for his gun, alert for anything threat-related, before he remembers –

The kid.

Jim rolls over onto his side. “Go check on her, will you?” he mumbles, face half-buried in the pillow.

Sebastian slides out of bed, remembers just in time to pull on some pyjama bottoms, then pads to the living room. He switches on the light.

Alex is sitting bolt upright in the middle of her little nest, eyes wide and tears staining her face.

Sebastian stares at her. No wonder, really, if she’s seen her mother’s corpse and then got swept off her feet by two strangers while being pursued by what might be her mother’s murderers. It would be abnormal if she  _hadn’t_  panicked at some point. But what to do about it?

Well, when it comes down to it, this isn’t that different from calming down Jim after one of his nightmares, is it?

So he kneels down at the girl’s side, careful not to move too quickly or to leave her field of vision, and gently touches her shoulder. “Hey,” he says softly.

She promptly buries herself into his arms.

He pats her head and desperately tries to remember how to deal with crying kids. He had nightmares when he was little, didn’t he? And when they got really bad, what worked best was his  _aayah_  staying with him, in bed, holding him as he fell asleep. Certainly letting her stay on her own in a dark unknown room isn’t going to solve this.

He sweeps her up into his arms and carries her to the bedroom, where he places her carefully in the middle of the bed. She’s already stopped crying, no noise but the occasional soft sniffle.

Jim sleepily moves his arm, then stops when he realises something’s off. He raises his head and stares in surprise at the little girl, currently curled up onto her side, eyes closed.

“She was scared,” Sebastian says by way of explanation.

Jim gives him a long look, then looks down at the girl. He shrugs and lies back down. “Don’t crush her accidentally when you turn over,” he mutters.

“Won’t.”

Jim turns onto his side.

The two dark-haired heads, close to each other. Of course Alex is still a young girl, and Jim is a grown man, but even in the darkness of the room he can see the similarities. The long dark eyelashes, pale skin, even the curve of their mouths.

Jim’s  _child_. It seems absurd, like a confused dream. Maybe if he closes his eyes he’ll wake up to find it’s all just that, and Jim will laugh his arse off at Sebastian’s imaginings.

Alex makes a quiet sound. Sebastian pulls the blanket down over her shoulders and settles down next to her.

Silence, the wind brushing against the curtains, and her soft, rhythmic breathing, a perfect counterpoint to Jim’s.

***

The research process is extensive, even by Jim’s standards. And obviously he ropes Sebastian in as well: once Jim has picked out potential candidates, it’s Sebastian’s turn to play the prospective parent and go check out the different families. No care homes, no orphanages, no institutions. Only families, some of them already with children, some of them without. And all of them community-minded, honest, decent kinds of people.

“Are you sure she’ll fit in there?” Sebastian asks when he’s reading up on yet another model family, so perfect it’s almost disgusting. “If she’s like you.”

“I’m not deliberately finding her a psychopath to live with,” Jim replies curtly.

And they go back to searching.

Eventually they find a couple where no fault can be found. The mother a English lit professor at Aberystwyth, the father a developmental psychologist. Nice people, kind, intelligent. Although god knows what Jim has on them that they agree – or what lies he told them.

“This is it?” Sebastian asks.

Jim stays quiet, his eyes on a picture of the couple in question. Doubting? Usually he’s so quick with his decisions – never hasty, of course, but he isn’t the waffling sort either.

“Yes,” he says after a while. “And I hope I – ” He stops, runs his hand through his hair.

“If it doesn’t work out, we’ll deal with it,” Sebastian says calmly.

Jim gives him one of his sharpest looks, and then his face eases into a slightly-strained smile. “Yes. We will.”

***

Sebastian packs Alex’s bag, folding all the clothes he bought her and neatly putting them in.

It had been an interesting experience, shopping for his supposed eight-year old daughter. The shop ladies had been so  _charmed_ by him, especially once he dropped the fact that he was a single father. It was an entirely different form of sex appeal than he usually has, but hey, if it works…

Alex is watching him again. She’s a strange child when it comes to interaction. Eye contact seems to be difficult to her, but she has a habit of staring at unfamiliar things, and at people, for far longer than is usual. Same with physical contact: apart from that one hug when she was crying, she seems to have no need for it. No handholding, no unprompted hugs, nothing like other kids tend to do.

But then again, other kids that age don’t have their mothers murdered in front of their eyes.

“Am I leaving?” she asks.

“We’ve found you a place to stay,” Jim says. While Alex has been fixed on Sebastian, Jim has been watching her, his elbows leaning on the table.

“Can’t I stay here?” Alex asks.

Odd. Despite the jokes to Jim, Sebastian would have thought her to be  _grateful_ to go to a normal family, somewhere safe. But of course, Jim and he are known now, familiar, and the foster family, however perfect they might seem, are not.

He remembers well enough how queasy he used to get when he was a child, whenever they had to move again.

“No,” Jim says calmly. “You can’t.”

“Will you…” She hesitates, bites her lip. “Will I see you again?”

Sebastian looks at Jim. His face has gone unreadable, calm, locked-off. Impossible to tell what he’s feeling, or even if he’s feeling anything at all.

“Yes,” he says at last, and little Alex nods and gives him one of her rare smiles.

Sebastian shakes his head and zips the bag closed. “There you are.”

Jim gets up and takes the bag from him. “Come on,” he says to Alex. “Let’s go and meet your new family.”

She drifts to his side. Jim doesn’t offer her his hand, and she doesn’t try to take his.

They go out together, side by side.

It’s arguably one of the oddest things Sebastian has ever seen.

 

 


	2. 9

Alex learns to look forward to the times her father visits. Not that it’s easy to predict when he’ll come around. At first she thought there might be some complex pattern, if only she understood it. Now, she’s pretty convinced it’s random. She’ll just come home one day and there will be soft murmuring voices from the living room or an unfamiliar car on the drive or –

Or small subtle differences only  Alex could pick up. She smiles, hangs up her coat, and goes to the living room.

Her father is sitting in the sofa, looking through the binder where Geraint keeps the family’s financial records. “Hullo,” she says.

“How did you know I was here?” he asks, not looking up.

“I always kick the mat against the door when I leave. It was back in its old place when I came in.”

He glances up. “Anne or Geraint could’ve come back.”

“They put their keys up when they get in, but the other keys were still in the same position as this morning, undisturbed.” She hops onto the chair opposite of him. “So it had to be you.”

Her father puts away the binder and leans forward. “How are you?”

“Fine. School’s alright. The new tutor is much better than the last one.”

“And your foster parents?”

She shrugs. “They’ll do. No bother.”

He cocks his head, studying her. She pulls at a fraying thread of the sofa’s cover, avoiding his eyes. It reminds her of her Mam, being studied like that, and she doesn't want to think about her Mam anymore. 

Then he hums and leans back, arms crossed, grinning. “Well then?” he says. “Tell me what you see.”

She returns his smile. It’s her favourite game, this, and one she’s grown good at over the last few months.

She gives her father a quick look. “You’ve been to Europe.”

“Because of the watch? Oh, come on, you can do better than that.”

She studies him again, a bit longer now. His wrists, his shoes, his fingernails… “You were pretending to be someone else,” she says, peeking up at him. “Someone clumsy and anxious.”

He leans forward again. “How did you work that one out, then?”

“You’ve got a tan line on your right wrist, but you always wear your wristwatch on your left. And it’s wider than the one you were wearing now. You’ve got bruises, on your wrist, your hands, from bumping into things, which you’ve never done before. You cut yourself shaving, and your nails are bitten.”

“Well done,” he says, approvingly. “Although you’re wrong about the bruising.” He check his watch and clucks his tongue.

“Really? Where did it come from, then?”

“Somewhere that doesn’t concern you.” He gets up.

“You’ve only just arrived,” she says, unable to keep a complaining note from her voice.

“I was only passing by, things to do.” He gets his coat and puts the binder back where he found it. She watches him, committing every detail to memory: the shape and movement of his hands, the expression on his face, the way he stands…

“When are you coming back?”

“Don’t know yet.” He puts his hands in his pockets and gives the room one last look. Then he nods. “Right. I’ll be off.”

“Can’t you – ” She bites her lip.

He sighs. “Alex,” he says, giving her a patient look. She drops her eyes to the carpet. “You know better. Don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll be seeing you.” He walks off.

Other people might have given her a hug, or a kiss, or even just a neutral touch. Not her father, though.

He knows her too well.

 

 

 


	3. 10

There’s a phone ringing.

Of course, in Jim’s household, this begs the question:  _which_ phone? There are over a dozen different ones, all linked to different sides of his operations, different pseudonyms, personas…

But the one’s that ringing now is one of the rare ones. A  _personal_ one. One that needs about twenty different redirects and security protocols before it reaches.

Sebastian takes it and answers the call. “Hello?”

“Am I – ” the voice on the other side says, hesitantly. A woman. “I was looking for, for Alex’ father.”

Ah. That explains it. “He’s out at the moment.”

“Ah.” And silence.

Sebastian rolls his eyes. “Look, love, I’ve got this phone, haven’t I? You really think he would let someone answer who he didn’t trust completely? So tell me what’s wrong.”

“Oh. She, er… She’s been refusing to speak for two weeks.”

“Really.” Sebastian pinches the bridge of his nose. “And that’s why you called, is it?”

“She’s also started refusing food.”

Which is significantly more serious.

Sebastian wanders over to the window and looks out at the street below, thinking. Alex has been… Well, mostly absent, for the last year and a half. Jim goes to visit her every now and then, but apart from that, nothing. Which suits him fine.

But she’s Jim’s kid, meaning she’s important.

“Any idea where it’s coming from?” he asks.

“She, er… said she wanted to see her father. And then she shut up.”

“And you didn’t think to call then?” he says, sharply.

“We didn’t want to disturb him. She’s been saying it before, it’s just – children, you know?”

“She’s not just some ordinary kid, though, is she?” He sighs and runs his hand over his face. “Right, I’ll come over tomorrow.”

***

Jim has protocols in place for this kind of thing. Procedures to follow, CCTV to rewire and potential tails to shake off, making sure absolutely no one can know where he’s going. It takes a lot of time, though, and even though Sebastian left before dawn he only arrives in the late afternoon.

It’s a nice place, the sort of thing you’d expect from an upper-middle class family. A lush garden, two cars in front of the house, three pair of boots at the door… Model family through and through.

The door opens even before he rings the doorbell – but of course Jim would have made sure the very best of security protects this house.

The woman in the doorway is in her thirties, with dark hair and laugh lines at the corner of her eyes, although right now she looks closer to crying. “She’s in the living room,” she says after a moment. Sebastian nods and follows her inside, down the dark hallway and into another room.

And there Alex is, sitting on the sofa, head swinging up the second the door opens. She’s grown a lot since the last time. Only, what, eighteen months have passed since then? But at that age, a year and a half means a world of difference.

The woman hesitates at the door. He jerks his head and she nods, leaves, closing the door behind her.

He sits down heavily in the couch, leaning his head back against the headrest and closing his eyes.  _Kids_. God, he’s entirely the wrong person to deal with this. And if he fucks up, Jim will have his hide.

He opens his eyes again. She’s watching him, eyes clever and accusing – solved her problem with eye contact, then. She’s got a delicate, elfin face, pale like Jim’s, making her dark eyes look even more striking.

“Sorry about this,” he says. “Jim’s in Belarus, won’t be back until next week.”

She continues to stare.

“So, we’ve got a choice.” He leans forward. “You can either tell me what’s bothering you, or you can shut up and sulk until your dad comes back from his business, which means another eight days of waiting.”

She cocks her head, a derisive expression on her face.

He’s never been good with kids. But he  _is_ good with Jim, so all he needs to do is stop thinking of her as just a random brat and start seeing her as  _Jim’s child_. Not that it’s hard: they’re pretty similar in looks, dark-haired and pale-skinned. The same sharp, all-too-perceptive eyes. The same arrogance as well, apparently, even though it’s strange to see that in a ten-year old girl.

“Look, it’s – ” He reaches out to touch her arm and she jerks back, her accusing expression becoming openly hostile. Wrong move, obviously. But yeah, hadn’t she disliked being touched when she was younger as well?

Sebastian sighs. “Yeah, look, I’m not your dad, I know. But I have been with him for a very long time, Alex. I know a bit about how he works. So really, I’m the second best thing.”

She continues to study him, with an intensity that doesn’t really fit her young, still round face.

“So? What’s the problem?” he asks.

Stare, stare. But then she opens her mouth - thank fuck, he got through to her. “Nightmares,” she says, voice slightly hoarse. She needs to clear her throat after she’s spoken.

“Right. What sort of nightmares?”

Another silence. She doesn’t trust him – well, of course she doesn’t, why would she?

“The kind where you’re chased by a dangerous animal, but then you wake up relieved it’s all just a dream?” he tries. “Or the kind where you feel like you’re drowning in your own head and you can’t get out, and even when you’re awake it doesn’t really stop?”

She blinks. “How do you know about that?”

“Your dad told – well, not  _told_ me exactly, but I guessed.”

“You mean he… he as well?” she says, obviously surprised – and more than a bit relieved as well.

“Yeah, sometimes. I reckon it’s your minds, whirring a bit too fast. It’s alright, you know.” He cracks a smile. “You’re not going mad.”

“How do I stop them?”

Ah, now that’s trickier. He leans back again, studying her. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if you can.”

“Then how…” She scrunches up her face in frustration, another look that could’ve come straight from Jim’s face.

“You find a way to move on from them. Nightmare happens, you panic, you wake up, you – put it away again. Get back to the present. It’s that simple.”

“It  _sounds_ simple.”

“Yeah.”

“What does my father do?” she asks.

 _Me_ , Sebastian thinks, but he does have  _some_ idea of what to say and not to say around minors. “Something to distract him. There has to be something else you can focus on, right? Something that absorbs you?”

She stares in the distance for a bit, then says “Maths.”

Sebastian blinks. But why not, he’s seen Jim fiddle around with equations as well when he’s bored, when there’s no cases to occupy him. Another family trait, who knows. “Fine. Then put some of your math books in your bedroom, go to them when you’ve woken up and you’re still – still upset. It’ll help.”

“Hm.” She nods, considering it. “I can try.”

“Great, then I’ll – ”

“I want my father’s phone number,” she says, sharply.

He should’ve known. “I… I’m not sure if I can give you that.”

“Then ask him,” she says easily, apparently having no trouble at all with accepting that he’s under Jim’s command, that that’s not his decision to make.

“I will, when he’s back. Alright?”

She cocks her head. “I believe you,” she says, slowly. “Why do I believe you? I never just believe other people.”

“It’s ‘cause I’m trustworthy.” He grins at her. “At least, on this kind of thing. So, we’ve got a deal? You’ll eat again?”

She nods, absently. “Yes, I will. You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, I’ve got stuff to do in London.”

“Stuff,” she echoes, sceptically. It’s a great deal of sarcasm for a child that young.

“Stuff I can’t tell you about.” He stands up. “I’ll ask Jim about the number, and I reckon he’ll visit you soon enough, to talk this through. So see you, Alex.”

“See you,” she says, with a strange smile.

Sebastian leaves the room, feeling slightly unnerved. The foster mother is waiting outside, still clearly worried. “Is she…?” she asks.

“We chatted,” he says. “I think it’s fine, but if – ”

The door creaks. Sebastian looks over his shoulder to see Alex step inside. “I’m fine,” she says coolly. “You can stop worrying.” A small smile. “He’s not going to kill you for letting me die.”

 _Jesus_. That’s Jim’s kid alright.

He clears his throat. “What she said, yeah. Next time, call sooner.”

“I will,” the woman says. Sebastian shakes her hand and goes to the door, then turns around one last time.

Alex is watching him, still with that small smile on her face.

He shakes his head and goes to his car.

***

Two months after that, Alex comes over to visit in London for the first time.

***

She leans her head against the window of the car and watches the buildings go by. London seems smaller than she remembers – but then again,  _she_ was smaller as well, so that’s only logical.

But those memories are coloured by fear, as well. Now, she’s intrigued. London has shown up in documentaries and TV series, a strange shiny behemoth of a city, and seeing it in real life is a thrill.

Not as big a thrill as actually living with her father, though. Even though it is only for a few days.

They take a left and the car slows down. It seems like an expensive neighbourhood. The buildings are tall here, wide, the streets mostly empty except for one or two of those fancy, streamlined cars.

The car pulls up and the engine switches off. Alex unsticks her cheek from the window.

Sebastian, the still-mostly-unknown stranger her father seems so fond of, opens the door for her. She gets out, peers up. Four stories of shiny white stone.

“Come along, then,” he says. He reaches as if to take her hand – she’s already preparing to jump back – but then he pulls his hand back again. Odd. Most people don’t tend to notice her dislike for that sort of thing.

She follows him inside, to a big, hotel-like lobby, and then into the lift. Sebastian stays silent. Honestly, she prefers it that way. Few things irritate her as much as idle chit-chat.

They get out at the fourth floor and Sebastian unlocks a door, then holds it open for her. Alex holds her breath – her memories of this place are vague, and other people’s houses so often bother her…

But she needn’t have worried.

She takes in the room with a smile. Wide, large windows, letting in the soft outside light but keeping all noise out. No clutter, no furniture all stuffed in together, no clashing colours or fabrics or styles… It’s a peaceful place, harmonious. Calming.

“First bedroom on the left is yours to do with as you please,” Sebastian says, closing up again. “Get settled in.”

“Where’s my – ”

“Delayed, for the moment.” He gets his phone out. “I’m just going to check up on him, but I’m pretty sure he’ll be here in less than an hour.”

 _Idle reassurance,_  she thinks, but Sebastian seems to pick up her scepticism. “No need for that look, love, I don’t do mollycoddling,” he says, something wry and amused in his voice.

“Then how do you know? How can you be sure he’ll be here?”

“If it was anything serious, he’d have called by now,” he explains. “We’ve got a system. Now go unpack.”

She goes down the hallway, Sebastian’s voice in the background. It’s tempting to try and eavesdrop, but…

Sebastian seems more perceptive than most people she meets. And she doubts whatever they’ll talk about would be that interesting.

She steps inside her room. There’s a single bed, adult-sized, an empty wardrobe, a chest of drawers. Empty, but more in a sense of waiting-to-be-filled than neglected. 

She puts her bag on the bed and starts unpacking, thinking all the while, the by-now familiar question – who  _is_ her father exactly? – fuelled with new information, new clues. It’s an expensive place, this. The way Sebastian talked about their system had an element of danger in it. Spies, then? Something like that.

But then there’s her mother’s murder…

She gets out the cat-toy from the bottom of her bag – feels a bit silly, she’s getting too big for those kind of things, isn’t she? – and puts it underneath her pillow. Then she goes to the window, looks out. The view is amazing, wide and clear.

They avoided the police the first them she saw them, didn’t they? Kept her away from any official authorities. Her documents – are those real, or forgeries?

So maybe not spies, exactly.

She goes back to the hallway and sneaks to the living room. The whole place surprisingly smells like toast and soup, and her stomach betrays her by growling loudly.

Sebastian is reading the paper on the sofa, and he doesn’t look up as she comes in. “Sit down at the table and get some food in you.”

She gives him a suspicious look. He still doesn’t react, so she goes to the table and starts shovelling soup and bread inside her as quickly as she can.

When she looks up, Sebastian is staring at her. 

“What?” she says, aggressively. The temptation is strong just to look away, but she’s learned to fight that impulse by now. Looking down means giving in, and she won’t be having any of that.

“You’re really like him, you know,” he says.

She smiles. She likes the idea of being similar, even though she hasn’t seen many similarities in the mirror yet.

“Speaking of, when’s he coming back?” she asks.

He checks his watch. “Twenty minutes, something like that. Depending on traffic, of course.”

She hums and continues eating. There’s music playing in the background, something slow with lots of violins and strange deep sounds. It's distracting, a bit. She tries to decipher the titles of the books on the shelves across the room, to give herself something to do. A bible, surprisingly. A few books on astronomy. Literary classics. Not that different from the library they have in Wales.

Not the kind of library you'd expect for someone she increasingly suspects to be a criminal.

Sebastian is watching her. She can catch him from the corner of her eye. Doesn’t he trust her? Does he think she’ll run off? Or –

Awkwardness. She hides a smile. People – grown-ups – are often  _awkward_ around her. She isn’t like other kids, after all, knows too many difficult words, sees too much. They don't know how to deal with her.

Maybe she could start crying, let her lip wobble a bit, that generally made them panic even more. Or maybe even –

“How are the nightmares?” he asks suddenly.

She winces. Did she make a mistake, in telling him? But his advice had actually been quite helpful, as it turned out.

“What’s that music?” she asks, instead of answering.

“Hm? Oh, John Adams. Violin concerto. You like it?”

She nods.

“One of Jim’s newfound favourites. Helps him calm down, apparently, put things in order.”

“He listens to music?” she asks, surprised.

“Oh, yeah. Got several shelves worth of CD's. It helps him with the moods, I think.” He cocks his head. “You don’t?”

“Listen to music? No.”

He shrugs. “Maybe you two have your differences then after all.” He goes back to his newspaper.

She glares at him, then closes her eyes. Come on, if her father finds something in this, she must be able to find it as well, right?

The violin, high up, picking out a fluid melody, sounding almost unstructured, but after a while she starts seeing patterns. And beneath the slow, deep, constant repeating line, like the waves of a sea…

The snap of fingers pulls her out. She blinks, slightly disoriented. Sebastian is standing in front of her, a strange half-smile on his face. “So, did you fake that for the sake of similarity, or did you have a bit of an epiphany just then?”

She opens her mind and tries to think of a way to describe how the music carried her away, absorbed her, but the right words don't come.

“Epiphany it is, then,” Sebastian says. He takes her dirty plate from the table. “Remember to ask Jim for his recommendations before you go back.”

“My recommendations for what?”

She jumps. She hadn’t even heard her father come in, yet there he stands, as sudden as if he teleported right into the doorway.

“You sneaky bastard,” Sebastian says, grinning. “Recommendations for music.”

“Music?” He turns his eyes to her.

Meeting people’s eyes is always difficult, but no one can ever make her feel quite as exposed as her father can. She almost physically cringes, only just manages not to hide in the collar of her jumper.

“I like it,” she says quietly, and if she suddenly sounds like the typical shy ten-year old girl, well, so be it.

He smiles briefly, then goes to his desk, taking out a wallet and keys from his back pocket.

She has to do it now. If she doesn’t do it now, she’ll lose her nerve.

She licks her lips, then says, “I need to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” He puts his things away in a drawer, his back still to her.

“Who killed my mother?”

He stops moving. From the corner of her eye she can see Sebastian suddenly straighten up.

“Did you kill her?” she asks, throat dry.

She doesn’t even know what she’d do if the answer was  _yes_.

But he laughs, turning to face her. “A very reasonable suspicion, but in this case, unfounded. I had nothing directly to do with your mother’s death. Reassured?”

“Then who did it?”

He meets her eyes, and for once, she can’t look away. “I’m not telling you that yet,” he says calmly.

“Did she die because of you?”

“Yes.”

She swallows. She knew, of course she knew, it was the only logical explanation, but still… It’s a shock, hearing him say that so calm, so cold.

“I know what you are,” she says, her heart beating in her throat.

He raises an eyebrow. “Really? What am I, then?”

“A criminal.”

“Darling.” He grins, wide, eyes shining with amusement. “I’m so much more than that.”

“Tell me, then,” she says hungrily.

“In time.”

“ _Now_.”

Sebastian laughs. She glares at him, but her father is smiling as well.

“Tantrums don’t work here, sweetheart, you’d do well to remember that. Now hush, I’ve got work to do.” He turns back to the desk and pulls out a folder. She continues to glare at him, but he summarily ignores her.

Sebastian clears her throat. “Come on,” he says, sounding amused. “Get your coat and I’ll give you a tour of London, how does that sound?”

“Fine,” she says, still annoyed. But her father doesn’t seem to notice.

She huffs and goes to her bedroom.

***

Three days later she goes back to Wales with a bag full of CD’s and several new maths books, an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of inner-city London, and an insatiable curiosity burning at the back of her mind.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The music referenced is the[ chaconne of John Adam's violin concerto](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1ktwTcPz0).


	4. 12

Not ever had Jim considered  _occasional custodial visits of his natural daughter_ in his myriad plans for the future. The child had featured, of course, but as a side-note. He’d put her in a foster family, or leave her with her mother, and she’d be nothing more than a theoretical exercise, far removed from him.

He never imagined  _this_.

She’s sitting on a chair, leg pulled up underneath her. He can feel her eyes on him, studying him. She’s a quiet one, as far as children go, unobtrusive and observant. Much like he used to be.

Not for  _quite_ the same reasons, though. Hopefully.

“I’m bored,” Alex says.

“Is that so,” Jim replies, not looking up from his computer.

“Can’t you – can’t you give me something to do?”

He stops typing and looks up. More than just plain  _boredom_ on her face, and he can relate to that, can’t he?

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs, awkwardly, her fingers tracing patterns on the wood of the table.

He leans back, crosses his arms, studies her. A child. His child.

What did he do, at that age?

He gets up and finds a heap of old folders. A quick shuffle to make sure there’s nothing too important among them, and then he goes back to the table and drops them in front of her.

“These,” he says, putting his hand on the top file, “are all coded. You’re supposed to be good at maths, solving puzzles. Prove it.”

She chews her lip, then nods and pulls one of the files towards her. Jim turns back to his computer.

Right, the British Museum. He calls up stills from several security cameras, copies the angles to a blueprint. It should be easy enough to calculate a potential dead corner, and once he has that… He opens up another screen, starts hacking into the personnel files.

It’s boring work, though. He stares at the screen, teeth in his bottom lip, watching the numbers and codes fly by.

The soft scratch of pencil on paper. Her breathing, slow and regular. The creak of the chair as she shifts.

Jim blinks, tries to concentrate on the work he should be doing. But she’s…

He shoves his laptop to the side and leans over to her. “Well?”

She wordlessly slides him a page, covered in his coded handwriting and her attempts at decoding. He runs his eye over it. Decent enough – not perfect, obviously, but already far better than any professional codebreaker’s attempts would be.

She’s still working on another page, frowning in concentration. Tilt his head, squint his eyes, and he’ll see himself at that age, doing exactly the same thing. It’s disorienting, time swerving and bending like that.

Jim gets up, leaving Alex to her decoding, and wanders over to the window. He looks outside. It’s still London, familiar and real – not the ghost-image of Dublin currently haunting his mind.

Nostalgia. God knows he’d never expected that to happen to him, but there it is.

The door opens and Sebastian comes in, carrying a rather large amount of shopping bags.

“What are we having?” Alex asks.

Sebastian gives her a grin. “You mean you don’t just  _know_ already?”

Alex grimaces, then squints at Seb. She always does that, when she’s looking for clues. It’s a habit she’ll have to unlearn, a tell far too clear to be safe.

“Something I don’t like,” she decides, nose turned up.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve got that face you always have when you’re doing something that annoys me.”

“A bloke’s got to find their entertainment somewhere, right?”

She sticks out her tongue at him, and he flips her two fingers in return.

And Jim starts laughing.

From the corner of his eye he can see Alex’ surprised face, Seb’s worried frown, and still he can’t stop laughing, at them and him and Sebastian unloading groceries in the kitchen and his child, his fucking  _daughter_ , sitting at his kitchen table and doing her homework and bickering and laughing and feeling safe, and he just can’t stop.

Until he can. He wipes tears from his eyes and grins at Sebastian. “Should I have put your slippers and newspaper ready, then?”

Sebastian laughs, finally getting the joke. “Does that make you the mother?” he asks, chuckling.

“Oh, come on,  _you’re_ the mum.” Alex, catching on.

“Oh, really?” Sebastian asks, one eyebrow raised. “And what makes me the wife, hm?”

“You’re ridiculously protective,  _obsessed_ with feeding me, do the majority of the cleaning – oh, and you nag the most as well.”

“See?” Jim says, leaning back. “I’m the fun dad and you’re the annoying fuddy-duddy.”

“Fuck off.” Seb disappears back into the kitchen.

“Wash your mouth out with soap,” Alex yells after him, and Jim closes his eyes and smiles.

Domesticity. Who’d have guessed?

 

 

 


	5. 13

The lock yields easily underneath Alex’s manipulations. She smiles and slips the lockpick – a present from Sebastian, although he left it to her to work out how to use them – back inside her back pocket.

She sneaks in, carefully testing the floor for creaks before putting her full weight on it. Stairs, not the lift, the safest way in. Four flights mean she’s out of breath when she’s up, so she takes a moment to breathe, calm down.

She’s in. A wild excited grin grows on her face; she fights it down again. Her father has told her what happens to people who let their enthusiasm carry them away.

She bends over the lock over the main door, getting out her lockpicks again. This one looks trickier, but no doubt she can –

Something hard prods her back. “Hands up where I can see ‘em.”

Alex straightens up and grins at the wall. “Hullo, Sebastian.”

The muzzle of the gun goes away and a hand grabs her shoulder, turning her around. She winces at the contact. 

“What the  _hell_ are you doing here?” Sebastian snaps. It’s probably the angriest she’s ever seen him.

“Came to visit.” She smiles, innocently. “I missed you.”

He holsters his gun, his face still twisted in anger. “If you want to visit, fucking well  _call_.”

She shrugs. “You might have said no.”

“With fucking reason. Do you have any idea – ”

“I’m not stupid.”

“That’s got fuck-all to do with it.” He scowls at her. “It’s  _dangerous_ here, for anyone connected to Jim.”

“Including you?” she says coolly.

He sneers. “Yeah, including me, but I know thirty-five ways to kill a man with my bare hands, which puts me in a  _slightly_ better position than you, love.”

“I can handle myself.”

“Yeah?” And he does – something, too quick to follow, but suddenly she’s face-first against the wall and her arm hurts like hell and the gun is pressed against her throat.

Her breath hitches.

“Bang,” he says softly. “Dead. Understand?”

His grip loosens and she shakes him off. “Fine,” she snarls. “If someone wants to kill me, I can’t do much about it. But I know how not to bump into people who want to kill me, so I don’t  _need_ to know thirty-five ways of murdering someone, do I?”

“Sounds nice in theory.” He holsters his gun again. “Doesn’t work in practice. Come on, get in, you’re here anyway. And knowing you, you won’t have eaten properly since you left Wales, did you?”

She doesn’t bother replying; he knows he’s right.

***

She still has a headache from the trip. It was – difficult; not so much the logistics of it as the constant unknowns popping up everywhere, too much stimuli to keep track of. The new environments, the noise of traffic, the strangers who gave her a lift, the busyness of London…

Sebastian returns from the kitchen with a cup of tea and a toasted cheese sandwich. She takes both and settles down in the coach, the aching behind her eyes starting to fade. The food helps as well; she often forgets to eat if she’s busy doing other, more important things.

Sebastian sits down across from her. Studying her. He’s done that before, and she’s seen him do it to her father as well, but it’s still a bit odd.

She’s used to not being seen, or to only let people see what she wants them to see.

“Why are you here?” he asks.

“How dangerous is it here exactly?” she asks back, dodging the subject. “He still refuses to tell me, what it is he does exactly, what  _consulting criminal_ means.”

He snorts. “And you think I’d tell you if Jim doesn’t want to?” He shakes his head. “You’re too clever for that. Anyway, don’t change the subject. You’re supposed to be with your foster parents.”

She shrugs. “Got bored."

“And when you say  _bored_ , do you mean  _didn’t have anything else to do_ or  _felt like my mind was starting to eat itself_?”

She looks up sharply. He  _knows_ , she always forgets about that. “The latter,” she says. “Obviously.”

“So you came here looking for some excitement.”

He makes it sound so petty, so stupid. “I’m not a child,” she says.

“You are.”

She glares up at him. One of the things she always  _liked_ about Sebastian was that he didn’t treat her like a child – although that might just be because he doesn’t know how to treat children. Still, she always liked that he didn’t patronise her. And now this?

“That doesn’t mean you’re stupid,” he continues. He looks tired, irritated. Is he still angry? She’s never really seen Sebastian angry. He’s always calm, composed, relaxed. Cool head.

“Or that we won’t listen to you or respect your opinion, or anything like that,” he continues. “But it  _does_ mean that you’re our responsibility, and that we can’t leave you to make your own choices yet. Even if you’re smarter than most people twice your age.” He sighs and runs his hand over his eyes. “Look, what I’m trying to say… You want to come over? Fine. But let us know first. For one thing, we’re not always in London. What would you have done if the house was empty?”

“Gone back.” She smiles, sweetly. “Or crashed over here for a bit, try to break into the filing system.”

“Some of those security measures have built-in lethal defence mechanisms,” he says flatly.

“I’m good with computers, I would have – ”

“You’re not cleverer than your father, Alex,” he says sharply.

She shuts her mouth.

He’s right, that’s the problem. She’s  _not_. But the idea that just for once, she isn’t the smartest person in the room… It’s startling.

The door bangs shut behind her. She jumps and looks up, and Sebastian says, “Ah, speaking of the devil.”

Her stomach does a little flip. It’s not that she’s afraid of her father, not really that, but… Like Sebastian, he  _sees_ her in a way no one else ever does. And unlike Sebastian, he also  _understands_.

It’s harsh, having someone able to look into your soul.

He comes in and stops in the doorway, shoulder leaning against the frame. “Well?” he says, one eyebrow raised.

No point in lying or not answering, not with him. So she says, “I needed you.”

Something dangerous flashes in her father’s eyes.

She spent the day doing things – hitchhiking with strangers, breaking and entering, even being threatened at gunpoint - that would have scared the shit out of most people her age, and all the while stayed cool and calm, unaffected.

But now, all it takes is her father’s eyes and that  _look_ , and a shiver of fear runs down her back.

He strides over to her and stops right in her personal place, looking down at where she’s still sitting, feeling frozen to the spot.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks, deceptively soft.  He’s still looking at her, face calm, those dark eyes – her eyes – taking her in, down to every minute detail.

“No,” she says. “Not deliberately. But I was – ” She bites her lip.

_I was going mad_ , she wants to say, but if he thinks she’s mental he might not want her after all.

He takes her chin and roughly tilts her head up, eyes skipping between hers, studying her even closer. “They haven’t alerted me yet,” he says, slowly. “Even though they must have noticed you’re gone by now.”

“They’re scared of you,” she says. There’s a very small tremble in her voice, one she feels ashamed of, one he seems to notice. “They won’t dare to make a fuss unless they’re certain it’s serious.”

Something changes in his face, minutely, something she can’t pinpoint, but suddenly it takes all her resolve not to back away from him.

“We’ll find you somewhere else to stay,” he says, still soft.

And then he lets go and smiles, gone weird expression, gone quiet controlled anger. “I’m sure Sebastian has explained by now why turning up unannounced is a bad idea.” He goes over to the kitchen, then says, over his shoulder, “Do it again and I’m exiling you to South-Africa, got that?”

“Yes,” she says, throat dry.

With her father, that sort of thing isn’t an idle threat.

“Good,” he says. And then he adds, “What are we having tonight, Seb?” and Sebastian starts complaining about the Indian restaurant two streets away and everything is safe and comfortable.

She smiles and snuggles deeper into the couch, shaking off the last of the unsettling fear. No need for that here.

_Home_.

 

 

 


	6. 14

She’s nervous. It’s obvious, although probably not to most people. But Sebastian has literally seen her grow up, he knows exactly what to look for. And the tension, the slightly too-straight shoulders, the almost undiscernible twitch of her fingers…

He exchanges a quick look with Jim, who just shrugs and continues his work.

Alex hangs her coat up, turns back to them. She gives them both a quick look, then raises her hands to her head, pulling off her hat – and revealing short-shorn midnight-blue hair.

Sebastian fights down his smile. “Cold outside, is it?” he asks politely.

She raises her eyebrows in surprise.

Jim gives her one fleeting look and then goes back down to his papers. “The colour suits you,” he says, absent-mindedly, “but you’re incredibly visible and easily recognisable now. Be aware of that.”

She looks at him, and then at Sebastian, her face a picture of astonishment. “That’s  _it_?” she says. “I come home like this” - a wave of her hand- “and all you say is  _you’re more recognisable now?_ ”

“Well, you are.”

Another utterly  _confused_ look, and then her face relaxes into a smile. “I should’ve known, shouldn’t I?”

“I can probably do  _moral outrage_ if you want,” Sebastian says. She glares at him. He clears his voice, then starts: “How dare you, coming in here looking like that. Did you even spare a single thought on your poor parents?”

It would probably sound more impressive if he didn’t do it in the calmest, most ironic voice he can manage.

“The shame,” Jim intones, in a bored flat tone. “What will the neighbours say.”

“You could at least put a bit of  _effort_ into it,” she says. Her eyes are glittering, her grin revealing her teeth. She looks a lot like Jim all of a sudden.

“You’re a  _disgrace_ ,” Sebastian says, in a passable imitation of his father’s old strict, disappointed voice. “Pulling a stupid stunt like this.”

Jim puts down his pen and looks up at Sebastian, interested.

“As long as you live under our roof, you’ll obey – ” and Sebastian breaks off and looks down at Jim. “Sorry, can’t take this seriously. Do people actually  _say_  this kind of thing?”

“God knows. Which reminds me…” Jim digs his fingers into Sebastian’s back pocket – is Jim  _groping_ him in front of his teenaged daughter? – but then pulls out a condom. Ah, so that’s what.

“Catch,” Jim says, then lobs it at Alex. She catches easily, but only realises what it is when she catches it.

“Seriously?” she says, crinkling her nose in disgust.

“Well, dyeing your hair a bright colour… That’s a classic rebellious teenager move, isn’t it?” Jim says lazily. “It’s safe to assume sex is just the next one on the menu. Unless it’s drugs.”

“If it  _is_ drugs,” Sebastian says, struggling to keep a straight face, “come and ask first, yeah? We’ll give you the names of some good people, no rat poison for our girl.”

She laughs, loud and delighted. "You know, I’m pretty sure I could have you convicted for child abuse or unsafe parenting, if I told anyone what you just told me.”

Sebastian snorts. “You’ve been playing surrounded by guns since you were eight, love, it’s a bit late to complain now.”

“Who says I’m complaining,” she says, her grin bright and wide and just a bit evil, and in those few seconds she looks  _exactly_ like Jim. 

"Little psycho," Sebastian says affectionately.

"Didn't get it from the milkman, did I? Anyway." She tosses the condom back. Sebastian catches deftly and puts it back in his pocket - no sense in wasting it. “Thanks, but I won’t be needing this.”

“Going gay, then?” Jim asks. “Is that what the hair’s about?”

“No-o, it’s not.” She hops up to sit on the table, legs swinging.

"Then what?"

She shrugs. "Maybe I want to get noticed, for once. So, you’re doing drugs as well, are you? I thought you just planned things, didn’t get involved personally?”

“I’m not telling you anything, Alex,” Jim says lazily.

“Well, at this point, you hardly need to.” She leans back onto her hands, radiating smugness. “I’ve deduced most of the important bits already.”

“You only know a fraction, darling.”

She grins. “Oh, so there  _is_ more? How nice of you to confirm it.”

Sebastian bursts out in laughter. “Honestly, watching you two is like – like watching a bloody fencing match.”

They both turn him, twin pairs of dark eyes twinkling in amusement.

Sebastian shakes his head and heads for the kitchen. “One day, you’re going to stop the infighting and team up,” he says. “And god help the people who stand in your way then.”

“Like you?” Alex asks sweetly.

Sebastian looks over his shoulder. “Love, I’m nowhere near stupid enough for that.”

 

 

 


	7. 15

Sebastian is cleaning a rifle.

It’s his way of keeping busy, making sure he doesn’t go mad from doing nothing. Just like her father reads books on quantum physics for fun and Alex tries to solve so-called unsolvable mathematical equations. Something to do when there’s nothing else on.

Which means he’s got time.

She sits down at the table, facing him. He doesn’t look up, calmly continues cleaning the dissembled rifle in front of him. His long fingers dip deftly into the barrel and pull a greasy rag through it. It’s fascinating to watch, the skill of it, the grace.

“Want me to teach you how to do this?” he asks, noticing her watching. He puts down the cloth and reaches for his glass.

“Maybe later.” She watches him drink. “I need you to tell me about sex.”

He chokes, grabbing for his throat and coughing violently as, presumably, his drink goes down his windpipe instead of his oesophagus. “Christ,” he says, voice hoarse. “Give a man some warning, will you?”

“Sorry.” She smirks. “Should’ve said.  _Potentially shocking material coming up_. Although I thought you were unshockable?”

“You little shit.” He wipes away a few stray drops of whisky from his mouth and glowers. “Anyway, don’t you teach you this sort of thing in school?”

“Depends on how you define  _this sort of thing_.” She shrugs. “We've seen stuff about the anatomy of genitalia, the technical things, but that’s not… That’s not all, is it?”

“No, you’re right, it’s not. It’s like…” He puts down his rag and the scope and looks thoughtfully in the distance, until his eyes fall on the rifle parts. “Well, teaching you that this bit is the scope and this is the trigger doesn’t mean you actually know how to shoot, right?”

Alex nods. “And videos of, erm,  _shooting_ ”- her lips twitch into a smile and Sebastian gives her a half-annoyed, half-amused look- “don’t do that much either in way of teaching, do they?”

“Nope. Look, most of sex at first is just – trial and error. Live with the fact that you’re going to fuck up a lot, and learn from what doesn’t work.”

“I don’t like fucking up.”

“You don’t say,” he says ironically.

“So, erm…” Alex trails her fingernail over the grain in the wood of the table. ”You and my father…”

He shakes his head. “I’m not giving you any details about that.”

“But it’s – he likes it, right? It’s nice?”

“I presume so, yes. Look, Alex, it’s…” He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “There are no shortcuts here, no tricks that always work on everyone, ideal moves that you just have to learn and then always – ”

“How would you know?” she asks. “I mean, my father is - well, of course he’d be difficult, but maybe other people are more predictable to have sex with, normal people. Wouldn’t it be easier?”

He slides his hand off his face and smiles. “Jim was hardly my first.”

“Oh.” She closes her mouth, feeling slightly stupid. “So how many…?”

“Lots,” he says, with half a smile and no embarrassment at all. “Which is why I’m speaking from experience when I say  _there’s nothing that works for everyone_.”

Alex nods. “So how do you know what works or not?”

“You pick up the signals. You should be good at that, with all your deducing skills. And you ask.”

She pulls a face. “I don’t like asking either.”

“You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it. Or live with the fact that you’re very likely to be a bad lay. And I reckon you like incompetence even less than asking and fucking up, right?”

She nods, reluctantly. “Sometimes it’s really annoying how right you are, you know.”

“I’m aware.” He grins. “So, want me to show you how to clean a rifle?”

She returns the gun and scoots her chair closer. “First sex, then guns. What’s next, going to show me how to cut cocaine with rat poison? How to put someone in a strangle hold?”

“Useful things to know.”

“Especially if I’m stepping into my father’s criminal footsteps.”

Sebastian gives her a look. “Alex…”

“He still doesn’t want to tell me,” she says, avoiding his eyes and concentrating on the rifle instead. “I’ve lost count of how often I’ve asked and he still keeps me on the outside.”

“He wants to protect you.”

“He doesn’t trust me.”

“It’s not…” He runs his hand through his hair and sighs. She peeks at him from the corner of her eyes. “Look, it’s complicated, what we do. And you’re going to get involved, one way or another, that’s inevitable at this point. But just… Wait. Trust him to know when the moment’s right.”

She purses her lips in frustration. “It’s not like I have a choice, do I?”

“That’s true.” He puts a hand on her shoulder and leans close. Normally she hates having other people that close, touching her, but from him, she doesn’t mind so much. “Now,” he says, “first, you need to disassemble the whole thing…”

 

 

 


	8. 16

“Listen to your breathing.”

She slows her breathing down, counting it out, the way she’s been taught.

“Now your heartbeat,” the voice continues, calmly. “Regular, steady.”

She takes a deep breath, feeling the blood rush through her veins.

“The rifle’s part of you. It’s not just a thing you’re holding, it’s an extension of your arm, your finger, your eyes.”

She feels her body going strangely heavy, as if she’s being hypnotized – only instead of getting sleepy she’s more alert, more focused.

A touch on her shoulder. “I’m going to put on the ear coverings now. Wait until you’re calm, focused. Then count out three heartbeats, and pull the trigger between the third and the fourth. Got it?”

She hums, not bothering with words. A moment later her hearing is cut off.

She breathes again, slow and steady, just like he told her. Her heartbeat evens out, and everything becomes sharper – both the air in her lungs, her blood pumping, as the target in the distance.

One heartbeat.

Two.

Third.

She squeezes the trigger.

The bang from the rifle shockwaves through her bones, leaving her breathless. She rips the coverings off and jumps up, squinting at the faraway target. “Did I hit?”

“Look for yourself.”

She takes the binoculars. She hit, alright, but only at the very edge of the target. “Bollocks.”

“Don’t knock it, that’s impressive.”

“ _You_  don’t ever miss a bull’s eye,” she says, sulking.

“True.” He grins at her. “But I’ve got two decades of experience on you, so…”

“Fuck that.”

“Language.”

“Hypocrite.” She goes down on her knee to pack up the tripod.

“Big word for a kid,” he says, still grinning.

“I reiterate: fuck that.” She straightens up and hands him the tripod and the rifle. He puts them in the bag and slings it over his shoulders.

“C’mon, let’s go back, Jim’ll be ready by now.”

She falls into step at his right elbow, leaves crunching beneath her feet.

It’s odd, this. She’s been a city-child for all of her life, a trip to the Brecon Beacons all she ever saw of nature. But her father needed to be away from London, away from cities, away from other people – for whatever reason he has – and he decided to take her along.

He didn’t leave her behind.

And despite the oddness of the surroundings, it’s an ideal opportunity to finally develop her sniping skills, under Sebastian’s careful tutelage. There’s no one around for miles and miles, no one to react to the deafening bang of a sniper rifle.

Peaceful, unlike anything she’s known before.

“Sebastian?” she asks.

“Yes?”

“Why are we here?”

He looks at her, with that typical patient calm. “You know I can’t tell you.”

“You can, though.”

“Fine, I can. But I won’t. It’s not my decision to make.”

She sticks her hands in her pockets. “I know.”

She’s long past the time that she resented her father’s silence about his business.

They walk the rest of the way in companionable silence. It’s odd; she’s hardly ever comfortable in one-on-one situations, but with Sebastian it’s been easy since – hell, probably since he swept her up from Trafalgar Square when she was eight.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why her father’s been with him for more than a decade, now.

They arrive at the cabin that’s been their home for the last two weeks. Sebastian unlocks the door, gets in, then quickly disarms the alarm. Alex hangs up her coat and goes to the living room, where she finds at least a dozen different piles of documents – and her father, sitting down cross-legged in the middle of the room.

She leans down and picks up the top file from one of the piles.

“Mess up my system and you’re grounded for the rest of the year,” Jim says, without even looking up.

“I would like to see you try,” she says, absently.

“I’ve got a bit more experience in these matters than you do, sweetheart. Lost battle.”

She looks up, annoyed. “Will you two stop pulling age on me?”

This time she does get his attention. “Stop acting like a bratty teenager then.”

She flips him two fingers. He smiles and goes back to his documents.

“What are you doing?”

“Work,” he says curtly. Still keeping up the silence, the secrecy, even though - 

She takes a folder and opens it. “What’s this?”

“Also work.”

“I assumed. Can I – ”

“Out,” he says, with a little jerk of his head. His tone is short, and she knows her father well enough to recognise when he’s being serious. She puts the folder down and quietly leaves the room.

“Jim’s being grumpy,” she says when she gets into the kitchen.

“And?” Sebastian’s chopping up vegetables. As always, seeing him being domestic throws her off a bit. But even international supervillains need to eat, and restaurants or takeaway is not an option when you’re in a cabin in the middle of nowhere.

She hops onto the counter and starts swinging her legs. “I don’t want him grumpy.”

“He’ll grump down once his work’s finished.” He swipes chopped vegetables into a pot, then turns and leans against the counter, watching her. “Well?”

“Well what?”

He cocks his head, then reaches for the counter again – and the lights go soft.

She sighs and relaxes a little. She hadn’t even realized the bright lights of the kitchen were bothering her – and she should have, she’s been living with this since birth – but Seb always has this knack of figuring out what’s bothering her. Them.

She’s quite like her father, in some ways.

“What’s up?” he asks.

“Why should there be something up?”

He gives her a pointed look.  _Don’t bullshit_.

It’s hard to remember that, sometimes. She’s so used to bullshitting everyone – and it’s so fucking  _easy_ – that every time she gets back to them, she has to relearn that. Honesty. The fact that she can’t hide anything from them.

It’s about as reassuring as it is scary.

“Well?” he asks.

She shrugs, one-shouldered.

“Yeah, right. Look, if it’s…” He hesitates, frowns at her. The intensity of his eyes unnerves her.

“What?” she says, a bit too aggressively.

“I’ve seen Jim when he insists on keeping things private. It takes its toll. Just – keep that in mind.”

He gives her another few seconds. She stays stubbornly silent.

He turns back to the stove. “Hand me the sausages, will you?” he says, casual as you like. If she won’t talk, then he’ll at least give her the reassurance of familiarity, of domesticity and ritual and the calm little things that mean  _home_.

He takes care of her, Sebastian. In whatever way he can.

She brushes her hand across his shoulder as she goes to the fridge. It’s not that much, not compared to other people, but to her physical contact has never come easily.

And Sebastian will know just how much that little touch means.

***

She wakes up at three AM, wide awake, breathing shallow and heart beating far too quickly.

Nightmares.

She sits up, and despite her still-hammering heart and the fear still clinging to her, she smiles as old memories return. She still has a maths book at home, next to her bed, and a plush cat sitting on top of it.

Sebastian’s care for her goes back a  _long_ way.

She slides out of bed and pads down the hallway. The door to her father’s bedroom is closed, as usual. On impulse, she stops just outside.

She doesn’t even need to put her ear against the door, cartoon-style; she can hear well enough from here. A loud groan, a creak of the bed. A metallic clank and something that sounds like a muffled curse. Alex rolls her eyes.

There’s a  _reason_ her bedroom is on the other side of the house than theirs.

She leaves the door behind and goes outside. The sky is bright here, stars everywhere, nothing like London, or Wales or Dublin.

A few nights ago they’d stayed up well after sundown and Jim had pointed out all the constellations to her. Sebastian had made mocking sounds in the background, occasionally chiming in with the Hindi version of the stars’ names, or the French or German or fuck knows what other language. She had leaned against his shoulder the entire night.

Her family. The only family she's got left, now. She barely remembers her mother's face - except in the nightmares, there she's crystal-clear, the warm brown of her eyes and the rings on her fingers and the blood glistening at her slit throat.

It still hurts. Eight years, and it still hurts, and she still doesn't know what happened, who's responsible.

The door opens and her father comes out, disturbing her gloomy thoughts. He’s wearing the same clothes he’d been wearing earlier, only slightly rumpled, wrinkled, and with a thick coat on top.

He has another coat in his arms, which he wordlessly hands to her. She shivers and puts it on. Christ, she’s freezing, and hadn’t even realized it.

He sweeps his eyes over her, then leans his back against the bannister.

“If only people could see you now,” she says lazily. “The great feared Jim Moriarty, mother-henning his baby girl.”

“Pragmatism.” He pats his coat –  _Sebastian’s_  coat, now that she pays attention to it, a bit too large at the shoulders and saturated with his characteristic smoke-and-leather scent – and pulls out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. “I don’t have time to deal with you dying of pneumonia.”

“I’m touched by your care.”

He lights a cigarette and takes a deep drag, eyes closing, head tilted back. She cocks her head, watches him. There are scratches on his throat, and a dark red spot that could either be a choke mark or a love bite.

“Do you enjoy it?” she asks.

He opens his eyes, not looking at her. “The sex? Or the violence?”

“Both. Either.”

He gives her a heavy-lidded look. “Do you really think I’d let that happen to me if I  _didn’t_ enjoy it?”

“Good point.”

She watches him smoke some more, studying him. Her father is as mercurial as Sebastian is unchanging. Even so, this is a rare mood: peaceful, quiet, thoughtful. Because of the sex?

She’s a bit jealous, the aftermath of the worrying nightmares still clinging to her mind.

“Do you think I would?” she asks. “Enjoy it?”

“Have you tried yet?”

Despite herself, she laughs. “I don’t think parents are supposed to encourage their teenaged children to have kinky sex.”

“And since when is any of us concerned with what we’re  _supposed_ to do?”

She snorts. He smiles, but stays silent.

It’s the good kind of silence, though.

The thing is, sex… It’s complicated. There’s been no one yet she has thought of that way, no one she’s been attracted to. And considering how she is around most people, how  _difficult_ it can be sometimes, it seems doomed to fail.

“Sometimes even a touch is too much,” she says, suddenly, before she loses her nerve. “Sex is – it sounds like…”

“You really should talk with Seb about this, he’s the expert.”

“ _You’re_ the expert. You feel the same, don’t you?”

“Sometimes.” He taps ash off his cigarette. “I fucked a few of people but always came out disappointed, until Sebastian.”

“What was different?”

“He…” Jim stares in the distance, his cigarette trailing smoke into the night. “He knew what to do. He saw what I wanted, what I needed. And I trusted him because of that.”

“Trust. That’s what’s needed?”

“Maybe.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever trust anyone enough for that.”

“That’s what I thought.” He smiles. “Then  _he_ came blundering along.”

She looks down. “So, I have to wait for the right person. Is that what you’re saying?”

“I’m not saying anything.”

She falls silent, thinking. But before she can come to any conclusions, the door opens and Sebastian comes out, looking sleep-drunk, hair ruffled, wearing nothing but a thick bathrobe and fluffy slippers. That sight alone is almost enough to make her choke with laughter.

“What the  _hell_ are you two doing out at this hour, in this weather?” Sebastian asks, arms wrapped around himself against the biting cold.

“Considering the vagaries of fate,” Jim says easily.

“You can do that just as well from inside, in front of a fire. Get  _in_ , you idiots.”

Jim drops his cigarette and goes inside. Sebastian glowers at him, says something too soft to hear.

Alex looks up at the stars. Orion. Canis Major. Punarvasu.

“Coming in, then?” Sebastian asks.

She shakes herself and goes in, then pauses in the doorway. Sebastian is looking down at her, frowning, slightly concerned.

“I still have that toy cat you gave me, you know,” she says, on impulse.

She takes a second to revel in the completely surprised expression on his face, then goes back to her bedroom.

Sleep comes easy, for once.

***

The sunlight falling in through the large living rooms windows is casting patterns over the heaps of files. Alex traces them, sprawled upside down on the sofa. It’s only light for a few hours at this time of year, and sun is a welcome distraction.

Sebastian is doing something on a laptop. Her father is scribbling away, surrounded by half a dozen different papers, blueprints, schematics.

Alex tilts her head back and lets the sun caress her face. Maybe she should be bored – certainly she would be bored if she were still in Wales, at her foster parents’. But here, here she has the background presence of Sebastian, of her father, and for the moment that’s enough to keep the constant terrifying stillness of her mind at bay.

Her father sighs and puts down his pen. She looks up. “Work finished?” she asks, ironically. Her father’s work is  _never_ finished; he’s been at work continually in the eight years she’s known him.

So when he very calmly says  _yes_ , she almost falls from her chair in surprise. Sebastian looks up sharply from his computer.

“Sorry?” Alex says, swinging her legs around so she’s sitting the right way again, all attention focused on her father.

“You heard me.”

She stares at him. All these years, and now…

“Will you tell me?” she asks.

“Yes.” He smiles. “If you ask the right questions.”

Sebastian puts his laptop away and leans forward, watching them with rapt attention. Alex mind works at top speed, eight years’ worth of speculating and considering and planning all coming together at once.

The right question…

“Who killed my mother?” she asks.

Her father gives her one, long look. Sebastian leans back in his chair, arms crossed.

The silence in the room feel heavy. Weighed down with years-old secrets, implied references, things going unsaid for far too long to be ever considered as anything but life-changing.

Then he takes out an old battered-looking manila envelope and hands it to her.

Alex spreads her fingers over the paper, tender as if she were handling a child. “Thank you.”

“Have fun with that,” her father says, his expression deadly serious.

 “I will.” She puts the envelope on her lap. “Now tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

She looks at Sebastian, and then at her father. They’re both waiting for her, to take the first step. Leaving it up to her.

She briefly closes her eyes, feeling her life standing at a tipping point. Decisions. No going back from here.

She opens her eyes again.

“Tell me what you do.”

And he does.


End file.
